A beautifully written, life-affirming book.
A gifted writer returns to one of her favorite themes—love—in this case, as it can inform and transform grief.
After her mother's death, Summer was handed from one unwilling relative to another, "treated like a homework assignment somebody was always having to do." At six, she was taken in by an elderly uncle and aunt. Ob had a game leg (WW II) and enjoyed creating unusual whirligigs; May liked gardening behind their West Virginia trailer. They loved each other with a deep and abiding love, wholeheartedly including Summer. Now, six years later, May has died. In a poetic, ruminative narrative, Summer recounts Ob's mounting depression, his growing conviction that May is still present, and their expedition to find "Miriam B. Conklin: Small Medium at Large." Meanwhile, they've been befriended by Cletus, an odd, bright boy in Summer's class; she doesn't especially value his company, but is intrigued by his vocabulary ("surreal"; "Renaissance Man") and his offhand characterization of her as a writer. The quest seems to fail—Reverend Conklin has died—but on the way home Ob finally puts aside his grief to take the two young people to the state capitol as promised: "Right out of the blue, he wanted to live again." Rylant reveals a great deal about her four characters, deftly dropping telling details from the past into her quiet story—including a glimpse of Summer, as seen by a girl in her class, "like some sad welfare case," a description the reader who has read her thoughts will know to be gloriously untrue.
A beautifully written, life-affirming book. (Fiction. 11+)Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 978-0-531-05996-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1992
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss.
It’s 1983, and 13-year-old Indian American Reha feels caught between two worlds.
Monday through Friday, she goes to a school where she stands out for not being White but where she has a weekday best friend, Rachel, and does English projects with potential crush Pete. On the weekends, she’s with her other best friend, Sunita (Sunny for short), at gatherings hosted by her Indian community. Reha feels frustrated that her parents refuse to acknowledge her Americanness and insist on raising her with Indian values and habits. Then, on the night of the middle school dance, her mother is admitted to the hospital, and Reha’s world is split in two again: this time, between hospital and home. Suddenly she must learn not just how to be both Indian and American, but also how to live with her mother’s leukemia diagnosis. The sections dealing with Reha’s immigrant identity rely on oft-told themes about the overprotectiveness of immigrant parents and lack the nuance found in later pages. Reha’s story of her evolving relationships with her parents, however, feels layered and real, and the scenes in which Reha must grapple with the possible loss of a parent are beautifully and sensitively rendered. The sophistication of the text makes it a valuable and thought-provoking read even for those older than the protagonist.
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss. (Verse novel. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304742-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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